Burton and drummer Ronnie Tutt. Schilling
and Priscilla Presley will be on hand to share
their memories of the late rock’n’roll icon.
“I hosted eight dates on the Wonder Of
Yo u tour in Australia in 2017,” Schilling
recalls. “And I couldn’t believe it. It was the
closest thing to being on tour with Elvis, and
the audience reaction was almost if not the
same. It was an average of 10,000 to 12,000-
seat arenas and every building was sold out.
People were dancing and crying. It gave me
chill bumps, because I never thought I‘d see
that again.”THE SHOW WILL also include
Schilling’s and Priscilla’s home movies of
Elvis, and outtakes from the documentaries
Elvis: That’s The Way It Is and Elvis
On Tour.
“We fi lmed seven shows on a tour in
1972, so there’s a lot that hasn’t been seen,”
says Schilling. “Elvis On Tour won a Golden
Globe and we had a montage editor on that
fi lm by the name of Martin Scorsese. There
was a lot of talent on that fi lm.”
Wind back nearly half a century to Elvis’
Vegas years, and Schilling formed part of
Presley’s security, accompanying him to the
stage and watching out for stage invaders. So
what was Elvis like in the moments before
he took to the spotlight?
“Elvis was like a panther in a cage, waiting
to be let out,” Schilling states. “He never
went backstage early, because when he put
his jumpsuit on, he said, ‘My adrenalin starts
burning.’ He was like Muhammad Ali before
a fi ght. You could feel the intensity of Elvis
right before going on stage, and if you were
one of the four of fi ve people backstage with
him, you’d start to get nervous, too. He was
never relaxed before a show.”
After the concert, by contrast, “His mood
was totally opposite. He’d be laughing,
telling jokes, smiling. He was a lot of fun.
So the pendulum swung from one side to
the other.
“The fi rst thing he always wanted to
know after the show was how did it sound in
the audience? Was it a good sound system?
He knew when he did a great show and he
knew when he did a good show. And most of
the time it was a great show.
“Once he got on that stage, it didn’t take
much time until he got comfortable. It
was the place where he always felt most
comfortable in life.”
Elvis hadn’t even set foot on a stage when
Schilling fi rst met him on Sunday, 11 July,- The 12-year-old Schilling was visiting
a park in North Memphis when he chanced
upon the unknown Elvis trying to get a
football game together. Presley didn’t
have enough guys of his own age, so
his former high school buddy and later
Memphis Mafi a mainstay Red West asked
Schilling to join in.
“They had just the night before played
his record for the fi rst time on the radio,”
says Schilling. “I’d been listening to Dewey
Phillips, who played his record, for a couple
of years, since I was 10. Dewey was the only
guy playing rhythm and blues at the time,
which was pretty controversial, back in the
south in the 50s.
“Nobody said anything, but when we
chose up sides, I realised that the guy who
was going to be throwing me footballs was
the guy I heard on the radio the night before.
“He’s the only star I know who had theimage of a star before he had a hit record
or a movie,” Schilling marvels. “It was like
playing football with James Dean. He had
that rebel-ness, that coolness. There was the
spark of a nice guy as well, but more it was
the rebel. Truly, it was the rebel.”
Elvis’ fame took off fast, locally.
“Within three weeks, our third football
game, people had heard about where he
was playing. Everybody wanted to play
football with him or do anything around
Elvis in Memphis at that time. So he had
to do private things. He’d hire cinemas for
private late-night movies; private all-night
amusement parks. I was always invited to
those things.”
Presley typically liked to hire people who
knew him before he was famous, and having
kept in touch throughout Schilling’s school
years, Elvis eventually asked Jerry to join
his entourage full time.
“In my senior year at college, I was going
to be a history teacher and a football coach.
Elvis got in touch and asked me to come out
to the house. He never called it Graceland,
he always called it ‘the house.’ He said, ‘I
need you to come and work for me.’
“I had to think, because I had to quit
college and two part time jobs, and tell myJerry Schilling with
Elvis in the 1960s“THE FIRST THING HE
ALWAYS WANTED TO
KNOW AFTER THESHOW WAS HOW DID
IT SOUND IN THEAUDIENCE?”
Elvis In Concert